


VIII

by sunwise



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sad, idek i wrote this forever ago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 00:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4543701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwise/pseuds/sunwise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight months is a while to wait. Eight times Annabeth misses Percy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> so i wrote this like three years ago on ff.net and i thought i might as well post it here as well  
> because this was written so long ago, it doesn't really follow the canon plot or like any sort of character development that appears in the later books so just bear with me (or bear with the me of 2012 haha)  
> uh other than that just enjoy i guess its a pretty chill story

I.

The first time she doesn't see him in the morning at breakfast, she's disappointed, but it's not really a big deal, because she knows he's probably off gallivanting in China or something with Mrs. O'Leary. On a quest for his dad, no doubt. He's done this before. He'll Iris-message her before lunch. So she waits, for the whole day, knowing that he'll be back soon. But as the end of the day approaches, and he hasn't contacted her or done anything, she suddenly realizes that now she'll have to sit alone at campfire tonight, without someone to lean on.

Now she's worried.

So she goes to bed early, skipping the fire. She's shaking, but she tells herself to calm down. It'll all be fine tomorrow.

But next morning, he's not there. So she eats her eggs slowly, because each bite tastes like cement. The walk to the arena takes about an hour in her head, because she can't stop wondering where he is.

So she's creaming some shrimpy Demeter kid, which can at least help her take her mind off of him, so she can strategize. The day is better than she'd expected.

But then she feels her grip on her knife slip, and suddenly it clatters on the floor. Spinning on it's point. Her hands go to her temple, and she feels like someone is trying to turn her inside out. A vision erupts in front of her, and the one goddess she would never ask for help appears in front of her, obviously distressed. Hera looks at her, the creases in her forehead deeper than Tartarus.

"Annabeth, do you hear me?"

She can only let out a gasp in return.

"Help him. Go to the Grand Canyon. Annabeth, do you hear that? Go to the Grand Canyon. The boy with one shoe will give you the answer. Go, Annabeth. Go. He will help. You will see him again. Go. Go!" Her image is flickering as she says the last word.

So she snatches up her knife, scrambling out of the arena. She somehow she finds herself stripped of armor, in the forge, where Butch, her new friend is tinkering at the flying chariot. She know what she has to do. She has to go, she has to go now, so she pushes Butch to the passenger seat, and the chariot is rising, rising above the pegasus riders, and then it takes off, flying faster than Blackjack.

"Annabeth!" Butch shouts over the roar of the wind. "Where the hell are we going? What are you doing?"

"She said he'd be there." She's so focused on the sky in front of her that she feels like her eyes will pop out of her skull if she looks any harder.

"Annabeth, I-"

"Shhh. She said he'd be there. Be quiet."

Butch doesn't say anymore, but even in his silence, she can hear the resentment.

Not that she cares.

She's going, faster than ever, putting on speed with every mile, and she can see the big crevice start to expand through the ground.

Arizona.

What a lovely state. When you're on a quest, it's always pretty if you're just going through, not stopping to fight monsters and such.

She's over the sky bridge when she spots them. Three kids, all battling anemoi thuellai. Then she sees him. The one who has the answers. A bolt of lightning zaps off his shoe, so she leans down, into the plummeting chariot, and her body is at rest for the first time in three days. Percy will be here soon. He'll be here.

It wasn't him. Just some stupid new campers. Old for newbies, sixteen, but at least they're at camp now. They don't matter to her. Oh, yes, a child of the Big Three. But he's not illegal anymore. Not as interesting as Percy was. He's not a big deal. Sweet daughter of Aphrodite. If she wasn't mad that their little group had ruined her day, she might have been friends with her. But she's not.

They're all just a bunch of tricksters. Stringing her along to believe her best friend in the whole entire world would be there, and then showing up, only to find out that he's just as lost as before, if not more so.

She's frustrated.

So she takes it out on them in the arena, beating them each worse than before. She acts nice in front of other campers, but in private, she's cursing them to the depths of Tartarus.

The three newbies get a quest. She wishes them luck, but she's secretly hoping that stupid Jason will die.

She leaves camp. She's been running across forests for days when she sees him. He leaps out from a tree at her, looking just as worried as she's been.

"Did you find him?" the terror in his eyes is obvious.

"No! I thought you, with your empathy link, you might've..."

"No." His face falls. "It's like... it's like he disappeared off the face of the earth."

She can't take it anymore. She falls down to the leaves on the ground, feeling as broken as the maple leaves she's just crushed. A tear runs down the dirt on her face. She may be Annabeth, brave, strong, world-saving, butt kicking Annabeth, but without her parter in crime, she feels about a million times smaller.

"Oh, no, Annabeth, I didn't mean... No, it's okay." He's awkwardly patting her back, trying to fix something that's been broken for too long.

Her breath shakes as she tries to gather it all back in. "No," she says, "He's somewhere." her voice cracks four times in one word. That has to be some kind of record.

"I know." he says. "You'll find him. I know you will."

The smile she gives him feels fake and forced, but it's the first time her face has made that shape in two weeks, and it feels sort of good.

"Keep looking." he says, and before she has time to register what he's said, he's vanished into the forest, faster than he appeared.

She sets up camp that night in the rain.

Crawling into the tiny tent, she hears the thumping of the fat drops of rain on her roof.

She hugs her pillow, imagining it's another person.

"I'll find you." her damaged voice rips through the night air. "You'll see."


	2. II

II.

After two months, it's only getting harder.

She's been searching for what seems like an eternity, though she keeps reminding herself it's only been seven weeks.

Seven, impossible, unbearable, lonely, awful weeks of traipsing through forests and deserts and finally making it to California and finding nothing and no lead, and feeling completely useless.

Seven weeks of going back to camp looking like an idiot who can't even find one camper. Admitting for a sixth time, "I didn't find Percy."

Butt-kicking Annabeth makes a few appearances. One time, she overhears some Aphrodite kids talking. This conversation is led by Drew, but she's not surprised.

"Do you think," an annoyingly high voice squeaks, "if he doesn't remember anything, I can just claim that I was his girlfriend and he'll believe me?"

"Well, you'd piss off Annabeth."

"Who cares about her? Besides, if they're not friends anymore, he'll finally give up on that hopeless case."

"Yeah, you're right, Drew. I mean, she's not even pretty."

Sour honey drips into her words. "Yes. Now you're seeing my way, sweetie."

And then she's there, smacking Drew in the face, and feeling the satisfaction of knowing that Drew can't charmspeak her into stopping because Aphrodite is on her side. Of course Percy's told her the story about that day in the desert, and how she and him are going to have the most tragic-

She stops cold.

Drew's already been beaten to a pulp, so she doesn't feel the need to hit her anymore. She can hear a distant yelling about how she managed to smudge the un-smudgeable mascara, but she feels miles away. She's already racing to the forest when Drew's trying to get her in trouble with Chiron. She clears the creek in one leap, and stumbles into the trees, not noticing the scrapes her arms are acquiring.

Somewhere along the way, she trips over a root, and doesn't have the power to get back up.

While she's been cursing Hera's name for the last two months, she failed to realize that there was another goddess who needed eternal damning.

Stupid, stupid Aphrodite.

The logical side of her brain informs her that it was actually mostly Hera, and the reason was because Percy was essentially the leader of their camp, and if she was going to waste any energy hating someone, it should be Hera. Plus, she has more reasons to hate Hera, so it just sort of adds to her usual fuming in her general direction.

The minuscule part of her brain that she devotes to unreasonable thinking still argued. This part of her brain, where all the crazy thoughts about Percy are casually pushed into, has been growing quite a bit over the last two months. This side of her is what had stopped her from pretty much killing Drew. It tells her that this is all part of Aphrodite's plan. The evil goddess has been devising this plan since she'd kissed Percy in the lake after the battle, and Aphrodite had sent him off to someplace like Uganda or Zimbabwe, and he's off wandering around, being stupid, and looking for her.

Her reasonable brain reminds her that he's only in California, probably still wandering around, being stupid, but she doubts that he's looking for her. He has... no memory. He doesn't even know she exists.

She's ready to fall to pieces, and march right up to Olympus, and demand answers. But she doesn't. She is a daughter of Athena, and as crazy as Percy might make her, she is still somewhat intelligent, and the gods have a reason for not contacting anyone. But the two months are taking their toll, and it upsets her. She's always wanted something permanent, and when she'd finally thought she had something, it left.

She looks up through the trees and sees the last of Zoe Nightshade flickering down at her. A wisp of a cloud blows over the constellation, and she's left to wonder if anything ever stays. Even immortal Huntresses end up in the stars someday.

She's stuck to the ground. Not literally, of course, but even when the first fat drops of rain make it through the trees and plop on her head, she doesn't have the energy to move. She hasn't let herself cry in three weeks. She's decided that if she won't cry in public, she won't cry in private.

But now, the hole that Percy's disappearance left catches up to her. She's been hurt physically before, raw wounds from poisoned knifes, but she knows from experience that nothing hurts like someone you love leaving. This is the Poison Knife Incident 2.0, except this time, she has no way for saving Percy.

No way of getting him back.

The tears she's held back for 21 days finally fall. They drop into her clasped hands, creating a salty pool before the spaces in between her fingers let them leak out.

They don't stop, cascading down her cheeks until her body has released all the tears it can manage, and then she's left with dry sobs, and the only thing that's stopping her from completely crumbling is the tree that's supporting her back. The rain is more than sprinkling now. She's soaking wet, and her usual curls have frizzed more than Rachel after a shower.

Somehow, she drags herself off the ground, wiping mud off the seat of her jeans. She wishes for her invisibility cap, but she's left it on her bunk, hiding the lights of Daedalus's laptop. Somehow, she crawls back to her cabin, and sneaks in the bathroom window to avoid being seen.

She tucks herself in, forgetting to change out of her clothes. She holds the covers to her chin, feeling lost and sad.

And she knows that when she wakes up tomorrow, he won't be there.


	3. III

III.

She spends the next two and a half weeks practicing being numb.

Sure, it hurts that Percy's gone, but that's not the reason.

Every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, she has to teach some new kids Ancient Greek, and every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday, some new kid asks her who Percy Jackson is.

So after the first two disastrous times, when she launched into a three hour explanation, she practices saying "My best friend. I miss him." And then explaining how tenses work in much greater detail than necessary.

So when people she trusts start talking about him, to retain the numbness, she'll just leave.

One day, after dinner, she doesn't have anything to do, and campfire isn't worth it, without any new intriguing campers and no one to kiss quietly when the flames are down during a ghost story.

So she's strolling around the volleyball courts, her hands stuffed in her pockets, when Piper comes up to her and demands information.

"Alright, Annabeth. You've avoided me enough. It's time to talk."

Annoyed, she walks quickly towards the Big House.

"Nope. You're not getting away this time." Piper grabs her wrist and shoves her down on the grass.

"Now, I want you to tell me about Percy Jackson."

"No thanks." She has no desire to tell Piper about anyone today, and if she had to talk, she wouldn't say a word about Percy. She moves as if to get up.

"Uh uh. You're sitting right here, and telling me why everyone here practically worships him. If you don't do it quietly, I'll resort to charm-speak."

As serious as Piper looks, she's not about to spill her heart out to a girl she's only known three months. Sure, she may be a child of the Great Prophecy, and Piper's pretty pleasant –for a daughter of Aphrodite- but she's friends with Jason, and try as she might, she simply can't find a redeeming quality in that boy. She has no idea what Piper sees in him. Talking to him is like talking to a brick wall.

"Sleep tight, Piper. See you in the morning."

"Oh, no you don't." She can see Piper gearing up to use her charm-speak on her, but she'd rather just tell the girl than be forced to.

"Fine." she answers, not planning on saying more than a few words. "What do you want to know?"

"What is he like?" Piper looks excited.

"Nice, and sweet. He's also really dense, and a bit stupid, but he's a good battle partner. Bye, Piper!"

"Come on, Annabeth." Piper shoves her back down again, grass staining the seat of her new shorts. "Start from the beginning. Tell me a story about when you first met him."

Piper sits.

She takes a deep breath, preparing to explain how she met him. "It's sort of a weird story."

Piper raises her eyebrows.

"Alright, princess." she sighs, "It was an unusual day to begin with."

"I heard a bunch of yelling coming from the top of Half-Blood Hill, but that wasn't uncommon. I figured it was some new demigod, doing something stupid."

"Was it?" Piper half smiles."

"Didn't I just tell you he's pretty stupid?" she smacks her on the shoulder. "Anyway, Chiron and I went up to get him, and he'd just killed the Minotaur."

"You mean the Minotaur?"

"Yep. Without any weapons, or anything. He'd ripped off the horn, and stabbed it. Then he passed out. I met him by nursing him back to health."

"Wow." Piper looks awed.

"Happy?" She doesn't want to talk to Piper anymore.

"No, no, tell me more. What happened during the next year?" Piper is practically jumping up and down from where she's sitting.

"We went in the Sea of Monsters and saved our friend Grover. He met his half brother Tyson. He's a Cyclops."

"And the next?"

"I almost died because of a manticore, and then he saved me from holding up the sky. That was over winter break."

"And then? What happened over the summer?"

"Piper, it's getting late. Do you want to be eaten by harpies?" She's done talking. Thinking about all of this just makes her miss him more.

"Just a few more? Please, Annabeth?" Piper puts something into the please. Probably charm-speak, but it could have just been her "Bambi eyes".

"All right. That summer, we went into the Labyrinth, I thought he was going to die, and I kissed him."

Piper draws in a long breath. "Did he die?"

"Honestly, Piper. I thought you were a smart daughter of Aphrodite." Piper giggles, and she can't help but smile a bit too.

"Then, he saved the world, and we kissed again at the bottom of the lake."

"And you've been dating ever since?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we have."

An awkward silence follows. Piper pushes herself off the grass, and brushes the dirt off her hands.

"Well, thanks, Annabeth." she announces. "Nice talking to you."

"Hang on. You're not going to tell anyone about this, are you?"

"I wasn't planning on it."

"No, swear it." Worry fills her eyes. "Swear in on the River Styx."

"I swear it on the River Styx. Annabeth, is this really that big of a deal?"

"Yes." she responds. If anyone knew what happened in Mount St. Helens..."You know what? Good night, Piper. I'll... see you tomorrow."

"Bye." Piper still looks slightly lost, but she leaves anyways, walking faster than usual.

She walks back to Cabin Six, feeling empty. The hollowness inside her chest seems bigger now that she's resurfaced old memories. She slips in the door, not unnoticed by her siblings.

She knows they hear her, but they make no move to acknowledge that she's finally arrived, a quarter of an hour after curfew. She shuffles into her pajamas, and crawls onto her bunk. Her laptop is still whirring away, but she hasn't even opened it in three months. She buries herself in her sleeping bag, and for the first time in her life, wishes that her stupid demigod dreams would come.

And with the tear that falls down her face as she scrunches her eyes shut, the ounce of happiness that she got from talking to Piper leaves her body faster than it came.


	4. IV

IV.

So now she's stuck at camp for three weeks while  _Clarisse_  goes and looks for him.

She decides that this is stupid about 3.4 seconds after Clarisse announces that she'll be leaving.

She stands up quickly, knocking over her chair.

"No."

"Annabeth-" Chiron starts.

"No! What the hell, Clarisse, you hate him. You can't go." She's past angry. She'd made her peace with Clarisse after Silena died, but this is too much.

"I can do whatever I want, thank you, Princess." she sneers, "So watch me go find your boyfriend, while you're stuck here being miserable."

"You won't find him." Her fists are clenched, the skin stretched so tightly over the knuckles that she thinks it might split.

"Watch and learn, loser." And then Clarisse is gone, swaggering out of the Big House, and she's on her way, on a hopeless quest.

"Dismissed." Chiron says sadly.

She's angry enough. She stalks out of the room.

 

Next thing she knows, she's standing at the door of Cabin 3, and she's not sure why. She  _needs_  to go in. There's something in there that is so important, but it's haunting her in the back of her mind. Like something she saw years ago, but took for granted, and didn't give it a second look.

It didn't matter when she was 14.

Her hand closes around the doorknob. She barely has time to think  _my mom won't be happy about this_  before her legs have carried into the place where he existed. He  _lived_  here. This was his home. Her throat catches when she catches a whiff of his scent. Sea salt and chocolate chip cookies.

She takes another deep breath.  
 _Blue_  chocolate chip cookies.

She still has no idea what she's looking for, but her body seems to remember the actions. She crawls up the ladder to his bunk. His sleeping bag is still a mess, and old candy wrappers litter the edges. Her hand makes its way into his pillowcase, even though her eyes are still blurring at the few pieces of black hair that rest on top of it.

She rummages around inside, finding a small piece of paper.

A picture of the 12 year old Annabeth, ripped from binder rings. Standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, looking entirely pleased with herself.

She feels no connections to this girl. This girl loved Luke. This girl thought Percy was an idiot. This girl was young. She thought she had seen everything. The girl that she is now knows that there is so much more to see.

The water running in the background has her forgetting that he's not here. She can feel his presence, feel him saying something stupid, but yet totally endearing, and somehow making her feel a little bit more like an Aphrodite girl. Maybe she could...

She can't stay in here anymore. As nice as it is to remember him, she can't take another second of looking at his old gym shorts before her throat closes up and she forgets how to breathe.

She manages to tumble her way out of the back window. No one can see that she's been in here. They'd think she was some sort of freak who can't go more than a week without taking her boyfriend's stuff.

She trudges back to her cabin, each step taking longer than it should.

Every ounce of strength seems to have left her arm. She pushes open the door, but even pulling herself up to her bed takes more effort than it should.

She tacks the picture up, next to the 35 others that hang on her wall. A bit like a time line. It starts with a picture of her, looking ready to hit the cameraman. The cameraman was Percy.

Next, a lovely photo of her  _actually_  hitting him.

As time progresses, their faces get longer, their pictures less "gods you're so annoying", more friendly, more "hey, best friend". Then, when you get to a year ago they become more romantic. Cheek kissing, lap sitting...

And then there's the last picture. Sitting at campfire, the flames rising higher than she's seen them since. He's pulled her into his lap, laughing, and she's laughing too, even though he's undoubtedly just said something that he thinks is hilarious. (She'd never admit that it actually is.)

She's got no idea who took this picture, but it's a nice one, and she's glad she has it.

Even though it's the last time she ever saw him.

" _Annabeth." the whining started._

" _No."_

" _Pleeeease?"_

"No. _"_

" _C'mon, it'll be fun!"_

" _No!"_

" _Fine. I'll go by myself." He strutted away, but slowly, as if he wished she would follow him._

_She can't resist._

" _Fine. I'll go to campfire with you."_

" _Great!"_

_He grabbed her hand, not even waiting for her to protest, and dragged her over to the amphitheater. Virginia Robbins was in the middle of a ghost story, but no one seemed to find it at all scary, as the flames were high and orange. He put his arm around her waist and led her up the stairs to the highest seat._

" _See? Isn't this nice? I knew you'd love it once we got here."_

_She rolled her eyes, as the Apollo cabin started singing._

" _The Minotaur just ate his horn,_

_The Hydra's down in dirt!_

_The Nemean Lion lost his head,_

_And now I lost my shirt!"_

_He hummed along, but couldn't seem to remember the words._

_She knew this song by heart when she was only eight and a half, but they don't sing it_ every single night _anymore. She was extremely bored though. "Okay, I think I've sufficiently experienced the sing-a-long. Can we go now?"_

" _Not yet." he looked so excited, that she had to wait with him._

" _Here we go!" he cried, then, turning to her, he whispered, "I asked them to sing this one."_

" _Aphrodite wants you to kiss,_

_Whether it be a hit or miss,_

_It'll still taste like bliss,_

_Let's go lovers._

_Helen and Paris were  
_

_Never serious..."_

_And he kissed her._

" _See? I told you it'd be fun."_

_She smiled, and kissed him again. "If you're still_ so _exhausted,_ _I'll walk you back to your cabin."_

_She grinned. "Sure." His fingers found the spaces between hers, and the two walked back toward the cabins. Her bare feet were covered in dirt and ash, but with his hand wrapped in hers, she felt like the goddess of love herself._

_He kissed her again. "Good night, smart aleck."_

_She hit him on the shoulder. "Good night, Seaweed Brain."_

_He gave her one last hug, and left, his figure disappearing into the dark._


	5. V

V.

So maybe it takes a just a bit too long to get to archery this time. It wasn't really that she was sad or having a self pity party, or that she's even just walking slowly. It's that she's sort of dazed, and so she trips over a tree root and has to run back to the infirmary to grab a Band-Aid.

So she's 24 minutes late to her 30 minute class. And so she spends the lovely last six minutes -that she should have spent shooting arrows- explaining to Chiron that she fell and needed a bandage. She even shows him the Snoopy Band-Aid that now decorates her elbow.

"Annabeth, I know you miss Percy, but you really can't spend all of your time moping around, coming up with excuses not to come to archery."

"I'm not moping!"

And it's really unfortunate that Travis Stoll just  _had_  to walk by and add to the conversation at that moment.

"Yes you are."

She receives a knowing look from her teacher.

 

She's been ordered to help Leo build the ship in her hour and a half break until canoing starts. She wouldn't dream of showing up though. She can't go canoing. Not in a million years. That was  _his_  sport. And there was no way in Hades she's going to the lake. That was where they had their first  _real_ kiss. Too many memories surrounded that place. Every single dragonfly seems to whisper  _"You failed again." "You can't find him."_  Every cattail swishes with broken promises. Even the dock tells her that she'll never see him again.

It doesn't really make that much of a difference though. She has plans to go back to her cabin and...  _not_  mope, but when she arrives at the door, Chiron is standing, arms crossed, just waiting for her.

"I knew you'd try to get out of this. Come on." And suddenly, she feels her ponytail being yanked up, and before she knows it, she's on his back, and they're galloping across the woods. He dumps her off at the bunker, and she has no choice but to go in.

The second she enters the bunker, the clanging sounds of hammers surround her, and she has to wonder how none of the Hephaestus kids have gone deaf yet. Then, a young boy, couldn't have been more than twelve, comes up to her and hands her a pair of bright pink earplugs. She doesn't put them in though. None of the Hephaestus kids are wearing them. Only the kids from all the other cabins. She throws the squishy pink things into the scrap pile. Maybe if she can't hear, she won't have to listen to the whispers about  _him._  She won't hear all the speculations about what exactly the Romans might  _do_  to him. She's thought of all of them. And more. All they do is scare her.

Her feet seem to have carried her over to where Leo is attaching some special devices to one of the sides of the ship. She stands there, watching his hands fly over the golden wood. Whatever he's doing, it's taking twice as long as it needs to. Joe Fulmer, on the other side, is working on the same thing. While his doesn't look as pretty as Leo's, Joe is done, and as he says when Nyssa asks him if he's  _really_ done, "It'll hold up in a hurricane."

The swift handed boy comes over to talk. "Hey, Leo." he begins.

_THUNK._ "Ow."

While Leo is, undoubtedly, one of the best builders at camp, she's decided that he's not exactly the most coordinated person she's ever met. In the time she's been watching, he's dropped three buckets of nails, hammered himself in the hand at least seven times, and, well, she lost count after the thirteenth time he accidentally set fire to something.

She's been standing there for at least ten minutes, but she can't bring herself to help, much less move. She's still overcome by the idea that this ship could bring  _him_  back.

"Leo," she asks, feeling foggy. "When do you think we'll finish?"

"Well, Annabeth, I don't know. We've got great people, like Nyssa over there, and then we've got people like you, who just stand there and distract us."

She has no rebuttal to this, so she stays quiet. She  _is_  just standing there and distracting Leo.

She feels a bit bad though, and she picks up a hammer, and starts to bang on a seemingly bent nail.

"NO, NO, NO! STOP!" she hears the boy's voice bellow from behind her. In all his craziness, he bangs into her, yanking the hammer from her hands.

"I was helping." she says, in a small voice.

"Sorry. Look, Annabeth, it's a  _hook_. We need that." Leo takes the hammer that he's now holding and taps the "hook" back into it's original shape.

She doesn't feel bad anymore. She feels horrible. The stress of five months is a lot, and she really doesn't have anyone to talk to about it. The only person that knows  _him_  like she does is Grover, and he's been in western Washington for about three weeks now.

She takes off into the forest, and doesn't stop until she makes it back to her cabin. Chiron starts to tell her off or something but she's so done with  _all of it_  that she just pushes past him and locks herself in the bathroom. Normally, this would be the point where she would cry, and wish  _he_  was there to comfort her. But this is an entirely different feeling. She hasn't felt anything like this since last August. She feels...  _angry_.

She really has no reason to. The reason she's angry isn't here. It probably won't be, for a while, and if it was here, it would make some stupid remark right now. No, this reason has been causing her trouble for six years, and she's so done with it, that she doesn't care if it ever comes back. The reason, however much she loves it, should have tried harder not to go and  _get itself kidnapped by the goddess of marriage._  She considers this, and when you say it, after all the other things the reason has done, purposefully or not, to hurt her, it doesn't seem that out of place. It's definitely stupid enough. And annoying enough. If she were the goddess of marriage, she would probably take him too.

But she had really thought that they were past all this. This  _reason_  will never stop haunting her. The five months are slowly carving away a section of her heart that may or may not ever come back.

Slowly, but surely leaving an internal scar.

She knows that when she finds this reason, she is going to give it a  _real_  scar. She doesn't deserve this. She's lost every real friend she's ever had.

_He's still alive though._ The part of her brain that's not made of mush finally kicks in.

Maybe there's still a chance for something permanent.


	6. VI

VI.

She's sort of glad that Rachel got a fancy cave when she became the new oracle. She'd grown up being terrified of the attic, when even a trip past the  _stairs_  was nerve racking. She supposes that if you didn't know Rachel was in there, the cave would look pretty ominous and scary, but she's such great friends with the frizzy haired oracle that it feels comfortable to just walk right in.

She wants to talk to someone. It's an unusual feeling, and she hasn't felt it in a long time, but for some reason, she just has to. Normally, her first choice would be Tyson, or Grover, but neither of them are anywhere near camp, and... well, occasionally she does like talking to... other girls.

Anyways, Rachel's a pretty cool girl. Well, at least for being a mortal.

The red head is in there already, painting a picture of someone that looks a little too familiar. It's only when she fills in the eyes with an unmistakable green that she realizes it's Percy.

At first, she feels guilty for not knowing what her best friend looks like. But somehow, she overcompensates by telling herself that she's spend half a year trying to push all thoughts of Percy out of her mind, so it's okay. Also,  _he's_  the one who went and got himself kidnapped. It's his fault.

Rachel turns, slightly surprised. "Hey, A. Didn't see you there."

Her feet are still frozen to the ground. She leans a bit farther forward, scrunching her eyebrows, and examines the painting of Percy.

"He has a freckle on the left side of his nose." She brings herself back to reality.

"Okay." Rachel says, and throws a cloth over the picture.

 

Her green eyed friend is sitting, silently sketching out a recreation of Monet's  _Water Lilies_  in charcoal. The daughter of Athena is still seated on a squishy bean bag, and she doesn't know if she'll have the energy to get up. In the last six months, she's lost so much weight, because of her unbelievable amount of stress, and missed meals. Her once powerful muscles have been reduced to barely twigs, making even the simplest tasks difficult. Armor that fit her perfectly last July now hangs loosely around her shrunken body. She has no power in the legs that could have run miles without stopping. Everybody's noticed, and she knows it, but they use their discretion and don't say anything.

She's spent the last half of an hour thinking of what she should say to Rachel, and watching like a little girl as the art blooms from the tip of her fingers. Every time she settles on something to ask, a little voice tells her Rachel doesn't have the answer.

The little voice says that, no, Rachel doesn't know why she's as broken and sad as she is.

Rachel doesn't know where her lost hero is any better than she does, or even Jason, who's started to remember more about his past life.

Rachel is as lost as she is, but she at least has the power to move on.

"He's going to have forgotten all about us, isn't he." The words tumble out of her mouth before she can stop them. She doesn't even phrase it as a question. It seems inevitable. He won't know who she is.

"Mm."

Rachel doesn't even look up.

"Because every time something good happens, it ends. Especially if you're me. Right?" Of course, she thinks, Percy had lasted considerably longer than the others. Even Luke, the  _real_  Luke, ended so fast she feels that she never even knew him. She always imagined him the way he was before they met Hermes at his mother's house. But deep down, she had always known he had changed. He wasn't the same. Percy was always the same annoying, stupid person she'd first met. He never changed. Now he's gone, and she wonders how much his death will change him.

"Sure."

"We'll find him, right?" She needs the reassurance that they will, and that he'll be there waiting for her. She hates not knowing when the ship will be done. She hates not knowing where in California he is. She hates not being able to look at him and knowing exactly what he's thinking. She hates not knowing anything. As a girl of Cabin #, she's grown accustomed to knowing everything, and, as head counselor, knowing more than anyone else. She thinks that since Rachel has at least  _some_  insight to the the future, she'll know something that the rest of them don't. And the blond needs to know more too.

"I don't know."

Frustration fills her up, a new feeling instead of numbness or tears. Rachel won't tell her anything.

"You know, don't you. You know. Why won't you tell me? Tell me now!" She cries, feeling unreasonably angry. She watches Rachel tense up, and then observes as all her muscles slacken and the anger is sucked from her face.

Sad green eyes meet her grey ones.

"I don't. Believe me, Annabeth, if I did, you would be the first person I'd tell."

"Before Chiron?" She asks, her voice small, weakened from her sudden outburst.

"Before Chiron."

"Oh." She feels stupid and weak, and slumps back into the beanbag. It was a dumb thing to say. Whenever anyone knows anything, they call a camp meeting, and the plans are altered slightly so as to find him faster. There are also mandatory "Percy meetings", where current plans and other tidbits are shared.

"It's okay, Annabeth. I know you're stressed."

Honestly though, she past stressed.

Externally, she looks about as sane as always, and she confines most of her ridiculous thoughts to her own head.

Internally, she's gone off the deep end.

She can't even blink without seeing Percy in chains, or brutally tortured, bleeding until there's nothing left to bleed, and left by Romans, a dead corpse.

Once, she spent a whole day looking up Roman torture methods, and she can only hope that he's smart enough not to be as big of an idiot over there as he is on the east coast.

It seems like too much to hope that the Romans don't have a mini Colosseum where he can be ripped apart by live wild animals.

His personality alone could probably get him killed in two seconds flat, just for being annoying, but the fact that he's Greek just increases his odds of being viscously slaughtered in more ways than even a daughter of Athena can imagine.

"They won't do anything unspeakably horrible to him, though, right? I mean, just because he's Greek? Or if he says something dumb and they don't know him, so they take it seriously and torture him to death, right?" The words rush out of her mouth, without giving her time to think about them.

Rachel slowly shakes her head. "I don't know, Annabeth. But if they're planning on it, we'll just have to get him back before they do, won't we?"


	7. VII

VII.

She's been invited over to Percy's. Sally's, she reminds herself. He doesn't live there anymore.

When she gets the call, she says yes, because Sally is even worse off than she is, and the idea that anyone connected to her son is coming over warms the aging woman from the frigid cold that took over her body when he left.

The crackling voice on the other side of the phone told the teenager to "Just come as soon as possible."

Her initial instinct after she hangs up is not to go. She doesn't want to be in a place where you can still smell the salt that always settled on his skin. She doesn't want to go to where he lived. Salt water makes an open wound hurt more.

She knows that she has to though. Grover visited Sally over winter break, and he told her about the emptiness that was inside of a woman once filled with love. The visits from camp friends add about a tablespoon to the ton of happiness that once filled the woman's body.

Argus offers to drive her into the city by gesturing to one of the trucks, but she prefers to make the trip on her own. She walks to the closest bus stop, which lies about three miles away.

Seven months ago, she would've ran the whole way, making it in about 20 minutes, but her weakened state leaves her gasping for breath after the first half mile, and her legs give out after the second. She has to sit in the grass for fifteen minutes and recover, and by the time she reaches the stop, it's almost noon. She'd planned to get to Perc- Sally's by nine.

Once the bus finally comes to it's almost forgotten stop, drives along the bumpiest road known to man, drops her off and by the time she's walked all the way to the apartment, it's almost 2:15.

Paul buzzes her up, but she stops on the stairs to stare at the Sharpie line that Percy had pointed out.

"Look at this. I drew that when I was six. My mom hasn't let me near permanent markers since."

The voice sounds so real to her that she turns to look for him, but it's only her imagination, a ghost of someone she used to know.

She keeps walking.

Her bony knuckles pound on the scratched door. Right above the doorknob, the initials PJ have been carefully carved out, the angles sharp and angry.

"See that, Annabeth? When I was nine, I found a pocket knife on the ground, but there was nothing to do with it. I wanted to use the knife part, so I carved my initials into the door."

Her fingertips trail over the P.

The door opens, and Paul looks at her strangely. She doesn't remember there being that much grey in his hair.

He forces a smile, and tells her, "Sally's out right now. She'll be back in a bit. Come on in." He seems unhappy to see her, though she can't imagine why.

She walks over the doorstep, and her breath catches. She guessed correctly. It still smells like the ocean in here.

The apartment, once a safe haven where cookies were always baking, and baby stories were told, now seems to be more of a memorial service to a boy who left without saying goodbye. Pictures of him adorn the walls, crayon drawings from ten years ago still hang on the refrigerator, held up by magnets crudely decorated with clay.

He was never known for his art skills.

The smell of cookies has long since faded from the warm home. She guesses that Sally hasn't even touched the baking ingredients since he vanished.

She finds herself in the hallway, wandering down the hall of pictures. Captions are scrawled in the corners of most of them.

Percy's first birthday. A smashed cupcake and a boy who looks rather surprised.

Percy's first day of school. A boy with slicked back hair and a button down shirt stands in front of an old lady, who must be his teacher.

She's surprised to see herself in one of the pictures. She knew that Sally cared for her, but not enough to gain a place of honor in the Percy hall of fame.

Then she notices the bent nail that the frame hangs crookedly from. Sally didn't put it there, along with all the straight, perfect pictures.

He did.

She stays there for quite some time, not wanting to face Paul.

The door bangs open, and a winded Sally enters. She can feel the shudder throughout the whole building.

"Annabeth?" She calls.

The shrunken girl races out of the hallway, coming face to face with the rapidly aging woman.

"Is that you, beautiful? You're getting so tall!" The younger of the pair smiles, "Oh my, are you seventeen already? Gosh, I'm getting old. Before you know it, my hair is going to match those pretty eyes of yours."

Is she really seventeen? She realizes that her birthday was in February. She had no idea. It had passed without her even noticing,

She notices the wrinkles in Sally's forehead. They seem deeper than the last time. She can tell that as happy as the woman might act, her eyes still can't mask the sadness that she feels.

"Come to the kitchen with me. I have something to show you."

She drags her feet, but goes anyways, following the sound of the creaky floorboards wherever Sally steps.

Sally leads her over to the phone. It's an old one, still attached to the wall, but Sally seems to know how to work it. She punches in a bunch of numbers, listens to an automated voice, and wraps her long fingers around the young girl's tiny wrist.

"Listen." There's something in Sally's voice, something that sounds like such unbelievable, uncontrollable joy, that it shocks her out of her stupor for a moment, and she holds fast to reality as a buzzy message plays out of the dusty speaker.

"Mom. Hey, I'm alive. Hera put me to sleep for a while, and then she took my memory and... Anyway, I'm on a quest- I'll make it home. I promise. Love you."

Beep.

It's choppy and bad quality, and he obviously had no idea what to say, but it was him. It was real.

They play it back about six more times, and the tears spill right over the lump in her throat.

Sally takes both of her hands in her own and looks her straight in the eyes, blue to grey.

"He's going to come home."

And then they're both laughing, and dancing around the kitchen to the sound of Percy's voice, because he's alive and he remembers and he called.

And so when Sally pulls her into a hug, she melts into the arms that encase her, and feels the touch of another human for the first time in half a year. She lets the pleasure of the moment take over her wrecked body, and lets herself be loved.

"He's coming home, honey. He's coming home."


	8. VIII

VIII.

She's sort of surprised by how annoying three people who are  _almost her age_ can be.

"What's he like, Annabeth?"

"Are you excited to see him?"

"Why does everyone miss him so much?"

She doesn't understand why they couldn't have asked someone like Katie Gardener before they'd gotten on this godforsaken ship.

She ends up hiding herself in a secluded corner near back, and nobody bothers her for a while. She can contentedly read an architecture book and slip into the bathroom whenever anybody gets near. It's quiet, but after forty five minutes, her book starts to get boring. It's what you would expect, her having read it thirty seven times already.

After three hours, she's itching to get off this ship. She gets seasick on regular boats, on water, when she has someone like Percy driving, but in the air, with  _Leo_  of all people manning the ship...

She's surprised that her breakfast isn't somewhere in Oklahoma.

There's a loud thump from somewhere down below where they are, and Piper snickers.

"You know Leo, maybe it  _was_  a good idea, when Nyssa suggested that you check the generator a third time."

"Piper, you'd better shut that mouth before I shove my flaming fist up your-"

He's cut off by a punch in the shoulder from Jason. The son of Zeus whispers something in his ear, and the only words she manages to catch are " _inappropriate_ " and " _impolite_ ".

She crawls over to one of the cots, and manages to get about half an hour of sleep before Leo somehow manages to hit a bump in the air. She wasn't aware that clouds had rocks in them.

She rolls over, and tries to fall asleep, but Hypnos won't grant her even that luxury. She finds herself getting tangled up in her memories, letting his presence wash over her for a moment in her hazy world.

She can practically feel his fingers in her hair, almost see his eyes floating in front of her. She can hear him saying something stupid, but even her brain doesn't know what wacky sort of thing he would say at a moment like this.

Piper rushes in, out of breath. "Jason says we're directly over the camp! Come out soon."

She stands up too quickly, and has to sit back down for four seconds before she can stand back up.

She rushed out to the deck. The boat is rocking dangerously, and she's ready for the waffles she had this morning to make a reappearance. She feels a shudder when the boat hits the ground, but her mind barely registers it. Her whole body has gone numb with doubts. Sure, he called Sally, and she talked to him in a dream, even if he didn't know whether she was real or not. But he could still have forgotten about everything. And whether she likes it or not, she's still included in everything.

She feels another thump rattle through her bones when the ramp smashes to the ground, but she's still frozen to the deck. He's  _here_.

 

She's planned to introduce herself.  _Hello, my name is Annabeth Chase. I come from the other camp..._  and explain their goal and why they came. She still doesn't feel ready to though. She'd only rehearsed it ninety three times so far. But she's set on it. She has to.

And then she sees him.

He smiles, his teeth white against his tan skin, and his eyes crinkle just a bit around the edges.

At that moment, she just  _knows,_  and she takes off running. Somewhere behind her, she hears Jason mutter, "Yeah, that's Annabeth," and say what she was supposed to. She doesn't even notice that people watch her intently, seeing what she's going to do. She can see him, and only him. He is everything, and everyone, and somehow, his smile makes up for getting himself kidnapped for eight months.

She wraps her arms around him, but even that doesn't feel like enough, so she ends up wrapping her legs around him too. She's smaller, and the Romans have obviously been working him harder than she used to, so it takes no effort for him to support her there. She'd decided back in February that she'll never let him out of her sight again, no matter how much he protests. She's already lost him before, and if two weeks on Calypso's island felt like an eternity, a day without him now would feel like a millennium.

She realizes that she hasn't said anything since she breathlessly whispered "Seaweed Brain" when she first saw him, and she worms her way out of his arms, still holding his left hand. She takes her other hand and works it into a skeletal fist, and rams it right into his nose.

"Ow!" he exclaims, clutching his face. "What was that for?"

Like he doesn't already know.

"You," she takes in a shaky breath, "are the  _single._ " she hits his arm, for more impact. "Most." She's already out of breath again. "Annoying. Person. I have  _ever met_." She draws in more air. Somehow, the familiar feeling of his hand in hers and his sea salt and cookies smell has left her still shaking with shock.

He gathers her up into his arms again. "Right back at you, Feather Brain."

He laces his fingers through hers, and they sneak away while Jason is being welcomed back.

"Won't they miss their big, tough, toga man?"

He gives her a lopsided grin, and she almost cries, she's missed that face so much.

"They can do without."

And he whisks her away to a secret place, where none of the Romans can find them.

A lifetime of talking couldn't replace the missing eight months that the two best friends spent apart.

But they might as well get started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you actually finished this i'm super proud of you this is really remarkably terrible so congrats for reading it all


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